Kona Cheddar Bikefest

Around 700 riders in teams of four, two and solo took part in the 10, 5 or the 3 hour novice event held over the sunny weekend and enjoyed a great day racing on the short but tough Cheddar course. The much loved sections like Vipers Vale, Devils Drop and Witches Wood put big grins on the rider’s faces. Every lap remained a physical and technical challenge until the very end but it didn’t stop the riders putting in some astonishing amount of laps and lap times.

That's your race face?Now THAT is a race face...

Saturday morning offered a sun spoiled start and the weather stayed solid throughout the day almost bringing temperatures up to mid-summer levels. The 10 hour solo event was won by Werner Van Der Merwe from What Next? / London Phonix with 29 laps in 9hours 50 minutes and Rickie Cotter from Genisis Bikes / Cytek. The pairs competition went to the My Life PT.com with the Mixed pairs going to Torq / Kona. The team competitions were also won by Torq / Kona (41 laps) who had another great weekend after the domination of the Kona Bristol Bikefest in June.

The 'walk like a zombie' competition was popular

Sunday morning saw another early start with the 5 hour and 3 hour events at 10am. The course was, by then, truly ridden in and it offered a variety and new challenges even for the riders who had already took part in Saturday’s 10 hour event.
Rob Holbeche won the open solo men’s competition and David Hayward from Patterson Training Bikelab won the old gits solo event with the female solo crown going to Fran Mundy from Torq Development. Fran being rather unchallenged in her category would have placed in 5th position in the male category. For complete results on all events please check http://www.timelaps.co.uk/.

The general atmosphere of the weekend was yet again super friendly and yet competitive with all the racers being extremely polite when overtaking. It shows that an event can be laid back without loosing its racy focus.

We would like to send a big thank you to our title sponsor Kona Bikes (www.konaworld.uk.com) who did a great job sorting the event and making it happen. The guys will continue with their support for 2010 supporting the Bristol Bikefest (provisional date: 5-6th June 2010), the Cheddar Bikefest (provisional date and 25-26th September 2010) and help us with our new event idea – the Bristol Mudfest in October 2010. More details on all the events on our event website www.bike-fest.com soon.